Worktop replacement in Millwall

Yes. Millwall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. The van has to stand through both halves of the day. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Open-plan living makes the kitchen furniture rather than utility, so the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab. The room itself is the easy part: walls are plumb, corners are square and the floor is flat, so scribes are minimal and joins can be tight. The building has kept moving; the new template catches up. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not.

A carpeted hall runs a trolley badly, so a heavy piece is carried rather than rolled from the threshold in. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. It decides whether the old top leaves whole. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. A one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Specified for wear rather than for the photograph. Replacing one plot years after handover is the problem nobody plans for, because a quartz colour can be reordered and a granite block cannot. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. No sealing schedule for anybody to forget.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The alcove was never square and it still is not. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Owners phase this work; a void period cannot.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. No payment is due before the template. The lift car, the loading bay and the building manager decide the piece sizes here, not the slab. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The tiles above will want attention once the old top goes.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. The hall is the only way in and out for whoever lives there, so it is cleared and then kept clear for as long as pieces are moving. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Both movements are planned as one.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Developer carcasses are thin cam-lock chipboard, which is entirely adequate under laminate and wants bracing before stone. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A sound carcass takes stone; a soft one gets replaced first.